Our system of government, in spite of Vietnam, Cambodia, CIA, Watergate, is still the best system of government on earth. And the ...greatest resource of all are the 215 million Americans who still have within us the strength, the character, the intelligence, the experience, the patriotism, the idealism, the compassion, the sense of brotherhood on which we can rely in the future to restore the greatness to our country.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

The President should not be required to take up the question of the selection of a successor before the last offices of affection ...and respect have been paid to the dead. If the proprieties of an occasion as sad as that which now overshadows us are observed, possibly one-half of the brief time allowed is gone before, with due regard to the decencies of life, the President and those with whom he should advise can take up the consideration of the grave duty of selecting a head for one of the greatest Departments of the Government.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life--this ...much we can stand. But the real problem is that government is boring. We could cure or mitigate the other ills Washington visits on us if we could only bring ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself. But we cannot.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyr...anny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

The Obedience of Children to their Parents is the Basis of all Government, and set forth as the measure of that Obedience which we... owe to those whom Providence hath placed over us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

... while one-half of the people of the United States are robbed of their inherent right of personal representation in this freest... country on the face of the globe, it is idle for us to expect that the men who thus rob women will not rob each other as individuals, corporations and Government.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by... 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

There has been abroad many times some criticism of our Government, of our people, and our ways, but that has demonstrated, I think..., that when they are in real trouble and real difficulty over there, they turn to us as a nation that will be fair with them--one in whose judgment and in whose character they can rely; and that not withstanding differences that have seemed to exist, they are willing to abide by the faith that they have in us, and I think that is a very substantial accomplishment.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

America has made no reparation to the Vietnamese, nothing. We are the richest people in the world and they are among the poorest. ...We savaged them, though they had never hurt us, and we cannot find it in our hearts, our honor, to give them help--because the government of Vietnam is Communist. And perhaps because they won.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »